Apple reportedly halts Mac component orders amid tanking PC sales

The ongoing crash of the PC industry hasn’t just affected Windows-based vendors such as Dell and HP — it’s also reportedly taking a toll on Apple. Supply chain sources have told Digitimes that Apple “stopped placing component orders for its Mac series products recently,” an indication that the company had significantly overestimated how many Macs it would sell in the first half of 2013. The most recent numbers from IDC show that PC shipments in the first quarter of 2013 fell by 14% year-over-year, while big-name vendors such as HP and ASUS saw their shipment numbers decline by more than 20% year-over-year. IDC also said that while Apple “fared better than the overall U.S. market,” it “still saw shipments decline as its own PCs also face competition from iPads.”